


all lies and jests

by AngWrites



Series: James Potter Finds Out [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (it goes better than you'd think), Angst, Humor, M/M, and james being something of a relationship counselor, and wished they could just throw a rabbit at the situation and walk away, content warning: rabbits, it's more than that though, many many rabbits, obligatory The Prank fic, or several rabbits, there's also a lot of rabbits, this fic is for anyone who's ever been in the middle of Friend Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-10 19:46:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13508511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngWrites/pseuds/AngWrites
Summary: The days are measured as such: before Monday, and after Monday. The "after" days come one by one yet all at once, while James watches his friends fracture, and tries to help put them back together. In the end, it requires more than a single motorbike ride or bar of chocolate. It requires learning when to run and when to stand still, when to talk and when to say nothing, when to interfere and when to leave them to it.However.The motorbike helped. So did the deluge of rabbits. Maybe "after" won't be so bad as all that.





	all lies and jests

**Author's Note:**

> _Such are promises,_   
>  _All lies and jests,_   
>  _Still, a man hears what he wants to hear,_   
>  _And disregards the rest._
> 
> \--Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"

It was a Monday.

It happened on a Monday, and James had to go to class for an entire week, pretending that everything was fine.

That by far wasn’t the worst part, not by a long shot, and it was the part he would later forget about altogether. But at the time.

_God_ , at the time.

There was a period when everything ran together in a blur, just before time slowed down and it all happened in excruciating, unforgettable detail. From that period, he only remembered small, specific things: the way he knew something was just slightly off with Sirius, just from the look on his face. The oddly triumphant gleam in Snape’s eye. The strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one he’d only learned to trust in the last year of sometimes being a deer—the _something is coming, something is coming for you, everything is going to change, RUN_ —feeling. It was a flash of light, a twitch in the undergrowth, the smell of something just slightly _off_.

He trusted it. So he cornered Sirius and drove him to answers. James remembered that part, but mainly because of the blind sense of panic and swell of nausea when he realized what Sirius had done. He forgot the actual words he said almost immediately.

The race down the tunnel underneath the Whomping Willow was impossibly long. He remembered every breath, every trip over every root he already knew was there. How cold it was, how the early December freeze sank into his bones even as he ran. Forcibly dragging Snape away with his heart in his mouth, terrified of Remus—of _Moony—_ for the first time in his life—even seeing him transformed for the first time, as a deer, with every prey instinct in him screaming, even that was nothing compared to—he could still taste bile in the back of his throat, just thinking about it—he could still smell the air as they tumbled out of the Willow, remembered the stars and the clear air and the cold ground—

James told Remus, later, that he forgot. That it was nothing, that he was too focused on making sure Snape got the _fuck_ away and didn’t do anything stupid(er).

He lied.

He would have told Sirius every painful detail, if he’d thought to do so. If he’d wanted to drive the point home, hammer it into him what he’d _done_. If it hadn’t been too fresh and raw. If he hadn’t known, in that moment, that _this wasn’t about him_.

The indomitable Hogwarts gossip chain noticed that Snape wasn’t in class on Tuesday, and that when he came back, he and the remaining Marauders were reduced to stony and bitter silence rather than the usual jeers and occasional fights. They noticed that Sirius and James had dark circles under their eyes, that Remus was out of class for longer than usual and that when he came back he looked like he’d been hit by a hippogriff.

There was nothing James could do about that. Under any other circumstances, he would have gleefully contributed to the wild rumors and stories. Then he’d have viciously denied the weirdest ones (to give them more credence), looked solemnly mysterious for the more plausible ones, and cheerfully confirmed the ones that got closer to the truth (to throw everyone off). He would have taken notes on anything he could actually use later, and invented a few stories of his own to throw in the mix, to sit back and enjoy as he watched them warp beyond recognition.

He had this down to an art. And he knew his silence would draw suspicion, nearly as bad as Sirius’s guilty looks. Sirius, who never looked guilty about anything. But he’d used up all his energy, all his fire—and just couldn’t bring himself to care.

Six months ago, he would’ve had Lily Evans hexing him to tiny bits for nearly killing her friend, but she and Snape seemed to not be on speaking terms anymore. He had her to thank for deducing that something was wrong with Remus, and deciding that James and Sirius were showing a rare glimpse of humanity (according to her) and were worried about him. This didn’t discourage the most wild theories, but it did mean people were too afraid of Lily to ask too many questions. This and the apparent Unbreakable Vow gag order (for James couldn’t think of anything else that would silence him) Snape was under from Dumbledore meant that most people would at least be nice (if a shade too curious) to Remus when he came back.

James figured he was learning patience and maturity, because he waited until Wednesday night to rip Sirius a new one. He could make sure that people didn’t see _that_ happening. And he’d be damned if he ever told Remus that the guilty expression only appeared after that little conversation.

He hadn’t planned on having it, even after he collapsed in the Gryffindor dormitory Monday night (Tuesday morning) and Sirius’s first question was “did you tell Dumbledore what I—it’s still my word against his that I told him, right?” and only asked about Remus second. Even after James spent all day Tuesday too tired to even look at Sirius, and Sirius kept threatening to hex Snape because he was “planning something. It’s the look in his eyes, can’t you see, Prongs? I _know_ he’s after me, just let me at him—”

Peter was no help at all. He hadn’t known about any of it until it was over, and then his only comment was “well, got off lucky, didn’t you? Good job not getting punished.”

James had pressed his thumb to the spot on his forehead between his nose and eyebrows, and hadn’t commented. He really needed Moony for moments like this—Moony, who was locked up in the Hospital Wing, in who knew what shape, because he’d almost— _god_.

He’d had a free period Wednesday afternoon, and spent all of it hammering on the door of said Hospital Wing, until Madame Pomfrey had snapped at him to get _out_ , Remus was _sleeping_.

James Potter was never going to go gray. He knew that deep in his bones, knew his hair would stay thick and dark well into old age, just as he knew Sirius would start going bald at the ripe old age of 29.

If he’d found gray hairs later that day, he would not have been surprised.

The last straw was Sirius actually having the gall to follow up, ask what they were going to do to Snape before he got to them. They were in the Common Room, pretending to do homework together, a normal weeknight with normal activities ahead. Except it wasn’t really normal; any other time, they’d be knee-deep in mischief on a Wednesday night—no need to worry, their next due date was on Friday. Peter had perked up, raising hopeful eyes up from his books.

James had slammed his own book shut.

Everyone had long ago learned to ignore strange sounds coming from the Marauder’s corner, which was a blessing, because if they’d paid attention they would have noticed the volatile current of tension. As it was, James was able to grab Sirius’s arm and drag him up to the dormitory without anyone seeing the grim look on his face. Peter didn’t even have time to voice a confused question before they were halfway up the stairs.

By the time they got upstairs, no one was looking and he was done being gentle. He half-threw Sirius into the room, slammed the door shut behind him. He clamped his mouth shut at Sirius’s incredulous “What the hell are you playing at?” and turned away from him to cast some spells that would prevent anyone from overhearing the shouting that was about to happen.

When James turned around, Sirius’s eyes actually widened at the look on his face.

“What am _I_ playing at?” he said, voice steely and calm, though he was angrier than he’d ever been. He resisted the urge to shove Sirius’s chest, as though they were still eleven-year-olds posturing to prove themselves. “How do you even have the balls to ask me that? What is the _matter_ with you?” His voice was rising now. He just hoped his spells held strong.

“What? What are you talking about, you’re the one that’s been acting weird, ever since—”

“Ever since I had to dash down a secret tunnel in the middle of the night to stop my best friend from causing my other best friend to _murder_ someone? Ever since then? _Am_ I acting weird, or am I acting perfectly fucking normal for someone who just went through that?”

“Merlin’s beard, it was just Snape,” said Sirius incredulously. “And he came out fine, and nothing even happened, so what’s up your arse?”

James stared at him. “Oh, my god,” he said finally. “You’re an even bigger fucking imbecile than I thought.”

“Excuse me?” He could see a shade of the Black family haughtiness in Sirius now, as he sometimes did when Sirius was angry. “I’m sorry, are you _upset_ your delicate little arse was in a bit of danger? Worried about Snape now, feeling sorry for him? Pardon _me_ for not considering your fragile constitution earlier, I _do_ apologize.”

And right now, he wanted nothing more than to smash his smug, inbred face in.

Sirius tried to push past him, to leave the room.

That did it. James punched him in the face. And before he could retaliate, he drew his wand.

Sirius stared at him, covering his eye. Good. James hoped it was black for a week. “What is the _matter_ with you?”

“Don’t you ‘what is the matter with you’ me, I’m asking _you_ that,” said James. “And don’t you dare imply this is about you! This isn’t about either of us, especially not you, you—you blockheaded cocknozzle dustbin-licking ass-end of a shitting cat _moron_!” He’d been saving these insults up all day. They still weren’t good enough.

“James—”

“I am _not_ finished,” James said, jabbing his wand in Sirius’s direction. “Reach for your wand and you’ll be in the hospital for twice as long as Remus will be, just fucking try me. And speaking of—did you think of him at all? Before you did this to him?”

“Before I did what? He didn’t get hurt at all, even Snape got away scot-free—”

“And if he hadn’t?” said James. “Did you think? Even for a second? _Did you think about how Moony would feel_?”

The silence was deafening. He stared at Sirius, breathing heavily, trying with all the self-control he’d never possessed to refrain from hexing him.

“He’d be fine, wouldn’t he?” said Sirius, after a minute. His voice had lost the Noble And Most Ancient House of Black edge, but it wasn’t penitent enough for James. “I mean, it wouldn’t have been his fault that…”

James rolled his eyes. “Yes, because Moony is so sensible in these matters, as we both know. Right? And even if he did blame you—which, mind you, he _should_ —you want to take responsibility for getting him kicked out of Hogwarts?”

“What? That wouldn’t—Dumbledore wouldn’t let that happen, he’d cover it up somehow and…”

“He’d cover up a werewolf attack on Hogwarts grounds?”

“He’d think of something,” said Sirius stubbornly. “Especially since it wouldn’t be his fault. Dumbledore would know that.”

_Are you really this stupid?_ James bit down hard on the thought. “Really? _Really_? And what do you think Dumbledore could do in a situation like that?”

“I don’t know, and look, I _am_ sorry you went down there, but you’re overreacting, it’s not—”

“Really? REALLY?” James roared the last word, wishing that he could knock sense into Sirius via sheer force. “He would do _something_ , anything? Is that what you think? Sirius, maybe _you_ could buy off the school governors long enough to cover up a grisly murder on school grounds, I know that’s the type of thing your family likes to do all the time, but I thought you were better than that. I really did.” He lowered his wand, tucked it back into his robes. “Guess I was wrong.”

There wasn’t a spell strong enough to make the door slam and shake the whole castle, like he wanted it to. He settled for a regular slam when he stormed out of the room.

  
Then he went down to the Hospital Wing to bang on the door some more.

This time, apparently Remus heard him and insisted he be let in. James was a little surprised, because Remus didn’t like to see anyone just after a transformation, and especially not after one as rough as this one had to have been. But he understood when he saw the terror in Remus’s eyes, the anxious look on his face when he leaned forward, barely grimacing at the pain, and asked: “Is he okay? They won’t tell me anything, they said I need rest, but please say he’s okay—that you’re okay. That no one got—” he swallowed, but managed to get out the last word “—hurt.”

James nodded, a bit numbly. “He’s fine. I’m fine. We’re both fine, not even a scratch.”

“Really?” said Remus, and the intensity in his face had not gone down at all. “ _Really_ not even a scratch? You’re not using that as a saying?”

“Really,” James assured him. “No scratches, no bites. And I don’t know what Dumbledore said to him, but he’s not talking. You’re safe, and you’re not going anywhere.”

Remus sighed, dropped his eyes away. “I don’t know how you can say that with such certainty,” he said. “Given that I’ve just proven that I’m—”

“That you’re _what_?” said James, before he could say anything James would have to punch him for. He could get away with giving Sirius a black eye, but not Remus, especially not while he was already so injured, and from the look of it, beating himself up on the inside just as much. “Someone who happens to have a bit of a…oh, I don’t know, a furry little problem, nothing destructive, just have to keep you to yourself once a month, that gets nosy Slytherins in trouble when they get too close? This wasn’t your fault, Remus, you can’t blame yourself.”

He was getting whiplash from the opposing “here’s who you should blame” conversations.

“James,” said Remus in a voice that tried not to be condescending and failed. “If I hadn’t been there, this wouldn’t have happened. It’s that simple. The rest doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me,” said James.

“What?”

He shook his head, frustrated. “Snivellus is the hardest on you, isn’t he? He’s a dick to all of us, but Peter is beneath his notice and Sirius and I give as good as we get. You’re the one he sneers at and bullies the most, he’s had suspicions about you for years—”

“And he was right,” said Remus bitterly.

“No, he wasn’t,” James snapped. “Because if he was right, if you were the vicious monster you seem to think you are, you would’ve taken a bite out of him years ago.”

“What? James, no, I couldn’t—you don’t understand—”

“You could’ve,” said James. “There are people in this school who would. And—well, someone did it to you.”

Remus had opened his mouth to protest, but shut it abruptly.

“Do you think I could be friends with someone like that? Would I have run down that tunnel to protect you if you were really a dangerous monster?”

“You weren’t protecting Snape?”

James snorted. “If I was, only because I’m going to kill that rat bastard myself and won’t let anyone else get there first, especially against their will. He’s going to die _knowing_ I killed him. On purpose. Oh, don’t disapprove, he’s a twit—forget that—Moony, I wasn’t thinking about him, I was worried about you.”

There was a heavy pause, before Remus glanced at him sideways. “Er, James, I’m very flattered, but I don’t think I feel quite the same way about you—”

“Oh, _god_!” James yelped, but the wave of relief that washed over him was so powerful he could barely summon up the appropriate amount of indignation. “Moony, you _wound_ me, you know I am saving myself for the one, the only, the beautiful, the incandescent—”

“Lily Evans,” Remus finished with him. “Yes, so I’ve heard. Glad to hear you haven’t gotten sidetracked.”

It was almost a joke at this point. She may have been fighting with Snape but she still wasn’t looking his way either, and he was starting to wish, desperately, that he could just let it go.

Maybe it was because he’d had a long week (was it only Wednesday?), maybe because he was just tired. He should’ve cracked a joke or said something dramatic, but sincerity fell out before he could think one up. “Yeah, not bloody likely. Are you ever jealous of people who only fancy other people for a little while?”

Remus looked suddenly panic-stricken, which James supposed was fair. He didn’t really talk about girls much, at least not to James. He and Sirius sometimes talked alone—or at least, they used to—would that continue now? Would they still talk about girls? Did they ever talk about girls? “Er—what?”

James sighed. “Just, you know. I know you lot think I’m joking—”

“We really don’t,” said Remus. His voice was dry, but he still sounded like he meant it. It was a Signature Moony Mood, as Sirius would call it.

“—and sometimes I wish I was.”

“She’ll come around eventually,” said Remus, unconvincingly. James gave him the skeptical, scathing look that statement deserved. “Well, I don’t know, it could happen. I mean, you’re not all bad. You did kind of—well, you didn’t save _my_ life, exactly, but—”

“Right,” said James. “Saved someone else’s life to protect you from doing something horrific against your will, the old song. That won’t do me any good, she can never know about it, which was the whole point.”

“Yes, but you’re not a useless prick, you’re actually a good person,” said Remus with the kind of finality that would make him a good professor one day. Or a librarian. Or some other kind of Mentor To Tortured Youth. “You just have to, you know. Act that way.”

“Right,” said James, and sighed. This was much too serious for this ridiculous day. “Thanks for the speech, Professor Moony. When are you going to be up and about again, I have been talking Sirius out of going into the Slytherin Common Room and chucking dungbombs everywhere for two days and I’m exhausted.”

“Really? You talked him _out_ of it? That’s a first,” said Remus.

And that was when James realized how much worse things were going to get.

Remus didn’t know yet what Sirius had done.

Oh, god.

“Oh, god,” said James.

“What? You’re not horrified at your own sense of responsibility again, are you? Because—”

“No,” said James quickly, before _that_ speech could start. “No, something much worse. Has Sirius been in here to talk to you yet?”

“Not really, this is the first day I’ve been awake…James? What’s wrong?”

“You should stay in the Hospital Wing until Friday,” James said. The idea of dealing with this during the week and having to go to class in the middle of it without arousing suspicion was giving him a migraine. “I’ll make sure he comes to talk to you before you leave, okay?”

“James, I really should get back to class, it’s almost Winter Break and exams are coming up, I don’t think—”

“I’ll bring you notes,” said James, and rolled his eyes when Moony squinted at him. “Okay, I’ll talk to Evans and get _her_ notes. Don’t look at me like that, she knows you’re not feeling well and she’s worried about you, she’ll do it if I manage not to creep her out.”

“You think you can handle the pressure?” said Remus dryly.

“I’ll say you asked me to ask her, that will convince her it’s nothing to do with me.” Actually, what he would say was that Remus was threatening to leave the Hospital Wing early even though he needed more rest, and would never trust his scattered and second-rate notes, but he felt no need to tell Remus that this story was the most convincing one. “Listen, Moony, you have to trust me on this—you’re not going to have a great first week back, okay? But Sirius needs to be the one to tell you why. Unless he’s a fucking coward, in which case I’ll tell you, but it will not be fun either way, honestly.”

“Send him in soon, then,” said Remus. “If it’s that bad, better to get it over with.”

“You’re too mature for your own good, Moony,” James said, and it sounded more fond than he meant it to. “Go back to sleep, will you? Madame Pomfrey will flay me alive if I keep you up too long.”

Also, he had to go think about how to have yet another uncomfortable and horrible conversation with Sirius bloody Black.

“Fair enough,” said Remus, and he did look tired. More tired than when James had come in, anyway—was that a good thing? Did it mean he could finally get some sleep now without worrying? Hell, he’d take it.

“Right then,” said James. “I’ll see you tomorrow, with a stack of Evans-Approved notes.”

“Cheers,” said Remus, and James let himself out before Madame Pomfrey thought to chase him away.  
  


As it turned out, James didn’t have to punch Sirius again to get him to talk to Remus. He just set his jaw, and told Sirius that if he didn’t talk, he’d do it for him.

Sirius actually looked properly cowed, and nodded once, without saying anything, at which point James decided to leave the rest of Sirius’s fate in Remus’s hands. And McGonagall’s, because he knew that by this point, Dumbledore would’ve notified their Head of House and left Sirius’s official punishment up to her. And so, instead of harping on about it, he just performed the Glamour (well-known by all of the Marauders at this point in their school careers) that would hide his black eye. They didn’t need people asking questions about it.

He never did find out how the conversation with Remus went down, and didn’t want to. He knew McGonagall revoked Sirius’s Quidditch team membership for life, and administered some excruciating detention that Sirius actually never did complain about. James figured it was best to not stick his nose in the business any further—he’d done his bit. Especially since, for the first time since he came to Hogwarts, he didn’t feel like talking to Sirius much.

In fact, the next time they did talk was a week before the winter break, and Sirius started it with “Er—have you told your parents yet?”

James looked up in surprise, from where he was lying on his bed, lazily flicking his wand at the curtains, casting whatever spell occurred to him at the moment. Currently it was a small flock of birds, dancing around in circles and curving lines. He was a little tired of rats and wolves and dogs at the moment—so, birds it was. For today.

“What?” he said, birds disappearing as his concentration was lost. He spared a brief glance at the window, where it was sunny and bright—cold, but normally they’d have found something to do (or get up to) anyway. They’d silently agreed to just…stay in today. He didn’t regret the decision.

“You know,” said Sirius. He was sitting on the floor, back against the bed, studiously looking at a newspaper—a sure sign he was trying to pretend to not care, although given the news lately he may have actually been reading it. “That I’m not coming with you for the holidays this year.”

“Um,” said James. “Why…why wouldn’t you be coming home with me?”

Sirius let the newspaper drop. It opened on an article about a new wave of wizarding classical music made by pushing various potions through magically-enhanced glass tubes. Ah. He definitely hadn’t been reading it, then. “Well—I dunno—why would you want me? After—what happened?”

“What?” said James, sitting up. “What are you—Sirius, you messed up _once_ , we’re not blasting you off the family tapestry—” Sirius winced—oops, maybe that was a low blow. “But you’re still—shit, you’re still _family_.”

Sirius was inspecting the cuffs of his sweater very closely. “Thought you said I was just like mine. Figured that meant I’m not in yours.”

“Oh, for fuck’s—” James stopped the outburst, and took a deep breath, trying to think of something that might actually help. Fuck, he needed Remus for this. Where was Remus, anyway? Hiding, probably. He and Sirius hadn’t said much to each other since he’d gotten out of the Hospital Wing, and Remus had a lot of work to catch up on. “Okay. Listen. Here’s the deal. You _are_ family. Not your shitty family, but—okay, look. I told you about that one time I broke a family heirloom vase into a million powdery shards that even my dad’s _Reparo_ couldn’t fix?”

“Yes, but—”

“And the time I crashed my broomstick into a hedge, two rosebushes, a bed of petunias, and three garden gnomes? Who were fine but then proceeded to dig up the dittany instead, because the flowers were gone?”

“That’s nothing compared to—”

“AND the incident with the mandrakes? The time I let a niffler loose in the kitchen? The time I got into a screaming argument with my mum over that horrifying Ministry bill she was supporting? The no less than twelve fights about how it was _not my fault_ something caught fire?”

“It was, though,” said Sirius. A trace of his grin was back.

“Right,” said James. “So I went without pudding for three weeks, or wasn’t allowed to touch my broomstick. You know how my parents punished me for the argument over the Ministry bill?”

“How? You never said.”

“They didn’t,” James said. “We apologized to each other and that was the end of it.”

It made James’s chest feel tight, sometimes, the way Sirius squinted at him in disbelief when he said things like that.

“Did she ever change her mind?” Sirius said.

James shrugged. “We talked about it, after. More calmly. She, uh…proposed some changes to the bill after that.”

“Wow,” said Sirius, and looked away.

He needed more sincerity. Damn. “Look, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to or if you think it’s going to be weird. But my parents don’t know what happened, they want you there, and your fuckup is between you and Moony. You’re not getting rid of me yet.”

“Right,” Sirius said, and sighed heavily. “Right.” He picked his newspaper back up, turned it to the Editorial column.

Hmmm. Depending on the contents of that column, there could be a lot of screaming coming up soon.

Time for a distraction.

He knocked the paper out of Sirius’s hands, and grinned at his friend’s confused look. “I’m starving,” he said. “Kitchens?”

“God, yes,” said Sirius. If it wasn’t as cheerful as usual, James didn’t choose to remark on it.

They found out as they passed him on the stairwell that Remus was on his way up to the dormitory, huge stack of books in his arms and dark circles under his eyes.

He and Sirius didn’t look at each other. But James did see Sirius pull a brick of chocolate out of his pocket and set it on top of the book pile, all without meeting Remus’s eyes. And Remus didn’t take it off or throw it in his face.

So that was coming along, at least. He’d have to check on them later, but for now—

For now, they were hanging on.  
  


The holidays were when James really lost track of what was happening. Sirius threw himself into them with the kind of reckless glee that James usually associated with impending destruction, but since Remus wasn’t around to stop him, James figured he’d had enough of being responsible and went along with all of it, shrugging. Even when Sirius insisted on putting Santa hats on every inanimate object he could find, up to and including marble busts, lamps, and every single arm of the coat rack. Even the bastardized carols, even the exploding pudding—which James’s mum laughed at for a solid hour, so there was no harm done there.

James’s dad did draw the line at the enchanted mistletoe, but that didn’t exactly stop Sirius. That wasn’t something in the power of any adult, not really.

All of that, however, was fairly standard.

What worried James was that during the in-between times, when he was not finding something absurd to enchant to sing Christmas carols (no suits of armor in the Potter house, but Sirius was very creative), there was a bleak look on his friend’s face that even exploding pudding couldn’t chase away. If he hadn’t known Sirius for six years he wouldn’t even have noticed, it was so fleeting and he hid it so well—but James knew.

He knew, and he could do absolutely bugger all to fix it. Sirius had to dig himself out of this hole by himself, and James couldn’t even ask Remus to help.

He did write to Remus, asking how he was and whether he had enough books to get him through the dark times of not having the best person in the world around to take his mind off nonsense activities like reading. James hoped there was enough genuine concern in the letter to get an actual answer out of him, but the short missive he received in return was dry, sarcastic, and utterly useless.

It also told James to make sure Sirius didn’t get himself murdered on the motorbike, which—what?

And that was how he found out that Sirius had been hiding a motorbike, stashed in a hedge near his parent’s house, that he’d been learning to ride. The Muggle way, because apparently he’d talked to Lily Evans, who had been on one, and she said that zooming along the road was just as fun and dangerous as riding a broomstick, if not better. Or at least, that’s what Sirius told him, and who even knew what was true under the web of lies his friend had been weaving—but anyway, now Sirius had to try it for himself, before enchanting it to fly, of course.

James’s brain broke in about eight different ways, that day. The first thing that popped out of his mouth was “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME,” at full volume.

Sirius looked at him like he had three heads. “I suppose I could find somewhere else to stash it, but I didn’t actually think you’d mind—”

“NO,” said James. “NOT THAT, YOU ASSHOLE, _YOU HAVE A MOTORBIKE AND DIDN’T TELL ME!!!_ I know we’ve grown apart, Padfoot, but this _betrayal_ , this _treachery_ , you told _Moony_ before you told me, I thought you weren’t even speaking—”

“Um,” said Sirius. “About that.”

“WHAT.”

“I’m taking it to go see him. Tonight,” Sirius said, breaking James’s heart in _twelve_ different ways, the unfaithful bastard.

“ _What_ ,” hissed James.

“His dad knows a mechanic,” said Sirius. “A Muggle one. To look it over, you know. If I have to leave it there I’ll Floo back. He says that’s his gift this year, that and not reporting me to the Ministry immediately.”

“Oh,” said James, for lack of anything better to say.

Sirius was fiddling with his cuffs again. “We don’t get much time, at Hogwarts,” he said finally, so quietly James almost didn’t hear him. Which was an odd enough moment in itself to make him pay close attention. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Teachers looking over your shoulder, Slytherins just waiting for you to mess up so they can pounce?”

James stared at his friend, long enough to really study his face. He thought about hours of winding roads and biting wind, and thought maybe there was a restless glint in Sirius’s eyes that “I want to see Remus” didn’t quite explain. He briefly considered doubling down on the betrayal, but somehow got the impression that he was standing on a precipice he didn’t quite understand, and the nature of this friendship depended on what he said next.

“I would’ve got you a leather jacket if I’d known,” he said reproachfully, hoping that would cover it.

Sirius grinned, and James knew he’d chosen right. “I have one,” he said. “Keep up, James, I got it ages ago. At a Muggle secondhand shop and everything, and I took it to a bloke in a proper motorbike shop and he said I couldn’t have picked a better one if I bought it brand new.”

“Your shopping prowess is incredible,” said James, only half-sarcastically.

“I’ll take you on its first flight,” said Sirius. “Well, second—after I make sure it works. Promise.”

James snorted. “You had better,” he said. “You’re on thin ice, Black.”

“Right,” said Sirius. “Speaking of ice, let’s go find some to slide on, shall we? The pond behind your house looks promising.”

“It never freezes all the way through,” said James. “But I think I have some Zonko’s fireworks, stashed away—” he stopped, and followed Sirius, who at these words was already making a beeline for James’s room.  
  


He spent that night alone, writing a letter to Peter that he’d been guiltily putting off for three days—it was full of complaints about boredom and missing Hogwarts, all sentiments James could not fully empathize with. Especially since there was a piece of mistletoe steadily trying to gnaw his ear off even as he wrote. That tended to drive away boredom pretty effectively.

Still, he managed. And as an apology for the lateness, even bundled up a package of homemade sweets and some chocolate that turned the inside of your mouth sparkly and green, in the hopes that they would alleviate the boredom a little.

Plus, not even Sirius would eat it. No one in the house could stand almond nougat. Peter was the only person James knew who actually liked the stuff.

James did _not_ spend the whole night wondering what his friends were doing without him.

He never did really find out how the conversation went, but thought he could hazard a guess without having to ask.

Well, sort of. There was a gap in his knowledge that he never quite forgave—didn’t Sirius tell him _everything_? Was he not the most transparently obvious person in the universe, whom James could read like a book without saying a word? But he and Remus both kept whatever happened locked up tight.

James only saw the aftermath. It was infuriating.

Sirius said a few things on the subject, but—well. When James actually thought about it, he realized his best friend never said a single word about how the conversation went.

The only thing Remus ever said was that it wasn’t the worst night of his life, which was Remus’s way of telling James to mind his own business.

James tried to put it out of his mind.  
  


The problem was—if James had only known it—that he wouldn’t have been able to understand even if Sirius did tell him. Or at least, he wouldn’t have understood on a visceral, bone-deep level, which was the only way Sirius knew how to truly understand anything.

This was something he had in common with Remus, in fact. Anyone who could know the phase of the moon if they’d been kept inside and hadn’t seen the sky for a year, without even thinking, because they just _felt_ it—anyone like that would understand that there are certain things that just don’t translate if you’ve never experienced them.

One of those things was the feeling of riding a motorbike at night in December.

Sirius thought it would be darker, somehow. He’d forgotten about streetlights. He never thought about them much and definitely never pictured them when he tried to imagine a highway. There was so much about the Muggle world he didn’t think about, and streetlights fell into that extremely broad category. Especially the way they passed by on the highway as he roared past them, and the long moving rows of lights from other cars on the other side of the road. The pinpricks of red lights ahead of him—like red, glowing eyes, until you realized that they were there to remind you that you weren’t alone, to show you where the other drivers were.

If asked to imagine it, he would’ve said it would be fast but not fast enough, too cold, and less exciting than flying. He’d need Warming Charms on his fingers and toes, and it would be dull. And on nights like this, it was cold, but he’d layered up warm and worn gloves, and it was enough protection against the wind blowing against him. Which was another thing—between the wind and the concentration he needed to maneuver the bike, it was anything but boring. He definitely still wanted to fly; the thought of roaring through the air like this had made its way into his dreams so that sometimes he woke up disappointed that he wasn’t under a dark sky with the bike beneath him and the ground far below. But in the meantime…this was almost as good.

Almost.

The city lights blocked out the stars. That was the problem. Sirius had admitted to Remus, once, that one of the many reasons he felt trapped in Grimmauld Place was that there were no stars in London. He’d grown up like that, never missed them particularly, but like so many other things, when he began to live under them at Hogwarts, he didn’t know how he’d survived for so long without them. He’d begun to see how life could be better—less stifling, less restricted, more free. On nights when they weren’t pulling some absurd prank or talking hours of circular nonsense in the Common Room, Sirius often just retreated to the roof. He hadn’t told James—Remus was the only one who knew this, knew where he was on nights when the stars were out.

He’d told Remus because he knew Remus wouldn’t laugh at him. He hadn’t expect him to understand but, as he so often did, Remus had surprised him.

“I like nights with a lot of stars too,” he’d said, smiling in the faint way of his that meant whatever he was thinking wasn’t actually amusing. It was a wry smile, almost pained. Sirius hated it. Hated that Remus ever had cause to look like that. “The moon is dark on those nights.”

The thought of that conversation made Sirius’s insides twist in knots, now. He tried to focus on the road, not his failure as a human being, but—

Remus downplayed it, was the problem. He smiled when he didn’t mean it, laughed at James’s jokes about furry little problems and even seemed to appreciate them. When Sirius thought about Remus, he didn’t think about snarls and teeth and blood. He thought about piles of books, rolls of parchment, melted chocolate on cuffs of sweater sleeves. He thought of steaming mugs of tea and viciously accurate spells, then calmly lowered wands and walking away.

Remus could bury himself under a pile of books in the library for four days, then come out blinking in the sunlight as though the world was a disappointment after whatever he’d found in the stacks of books. He was quiet and didn’t get angry fast, but when you did get a rise out of him the resulting jab was pointed and painful. He read like he was running out of time, but wrote slowly, making every word careful and precise. He was _smart_ , smarter than all of them no matter what he said about James’s and Sirius’s ridiculous test scores. He was smart because he tried harder, and knew more, mostly for the sake of knowing it.

And you’d think it was a waste of time, but then whatever long journey he’d gone on would surface in a conversation about _how_ do we pull off turning Filch’s cat into a shapeshifting, singing, pink and green moose, and Remus would pull out a string of dusty magical theory that turned out to be the exact answer they needed, so long as they applied it sideways and upside-down, which James and Sirius always did.

Remus hoarded chocolate all over the castle in case of emergencies and not even Peter, master of nosing out unexpected food, knew where all of his stashes were. He owned a mountain of argyle socks but no argyle sweaters, which he said were for old men and professors, and he’d be one or the other soon enough and would own nothing else then and no later. He kept everything he owned folded up neatly in a drawer, but Sirius had seen him wander into the dormitory with his nose in a book, pull out two pairs of matched socks, separate them, and put on the mismatched ones, seemingly without realizing what he was doing. He hadn’t understood why Sirius had stared at him in astonished, admiring, awe. He’d said he just thought he’d put them in the drawer wrong, and wasn’t paying attention.

Sirius had to commit to absurdity and chaos, to keep life interesting and from backsliding into the kind of lifestyle he knew was wrong but that his bones and blood remembered no matter how hard he tried to forget. James sought it out and found it effortlessly, claiming his right to do what he wanted when he wanted to.

Remus was the most responsible among them, organized and neat and conscientious, and if you didn’t know any better you’d think it came naturally to him and that James and Sirius were a bad influence, making him into something that didn’t come naturally at all.

Sirius knew better. Sirius knew that Remus lined his life up in neat little lines so that he didn’t step over them and send the whole thing careening out of control.

But Sirius _loved_ Remus when he was out of control. He knew Remus feared it, constantly, but he could never understand why. Remus throwing the lines out the window and giving in—it was beautiful. _Fun_. He knew Remus thought of himself as a monster, but even after seeing him in that form, never understood why—Moony, the wolf, was just another version of Remus, the one that liked to run in the woods at night and wrestle with Padfoot until they were both too tired to run anymore.

He forgot about the twisting bones. The rearranged guts. The sharpening teeth, the hair growing, the claws and fangs and blood. He saw Remus the next day, tired and pale, but less so since they’d become Animaguses.

He didn’t understand. Not viscerally, not the way he needed to. And he’d fucked up.

If riding on a motorcycle for ages and ages on a cold December night could fix the problem…well, it probably couldn’t, but Sirius was going anyway. There were some things they needed to talk about, and they couldn’t do it at Hogwarts, not with so many people and Severus Snape and James Potter around. Not even on the roof, on a night of a new moon, under the stars. Those nights were for silence or entirely mindless chatter, and they both needed them. He wasn’t going to ruin that too.

The lie about Mr. Lupin knowing a mechanic had been a good one. Well, not a lie exactly—he’d actually helped Sirius find one, last summer when he first got the bike but didn’t tell James about it because he knew James would want to enchant it to fly immediately, and Sirius wanted to take his time with this project, for once. He didn’t love heaping lie upon lie on James’s head, but it was more important that he get out of there. He had to see Remus, and he had to do it alone.

He didn’t know what he expected the Lupin family to say when he showed up on their doorstep—could only hope that Remus wouldn’t be too angry to let him in, that he’d restrain it around his family. That he hadn’t told them anything—oh, god, what if he’d told them? Why hadn’t he thought about this? God, he was so stupid. He never thought about things like this, just threw himself at the problem until it was fixed.

He was almost to the house, tucked away in a forest the existence of which Sirius never would’ve known about if Remus didn’t live in it, before he thought about what the reaction might be.

Christ. This was exactly why he was in trouble in the first place, because he never _thought_.

Well. Too late to turn back now.  
  


He got lucky. Remus’s parents were both gone—well, he didn’t think that was lucky, not at first, but it did save him from an extra awkward conversation.

Which was something, because it was bad enough as is.

Remus had heard the rumbling of the motorbike, and was at the door before Sirius could knock. “No,” he said.

Sirius blinked, already thrown off-guard. “Um—beg pardon?” He winced. James would’ve been making fun of his instinctive well-bred manners before he could say another word. At least he hadn’t said it haughtily, but he _had_ to work harder on kicking that habit.

Remus was different. More stubborn, less concerned with teasing him about his weak points. “No,” he said again. “I don’t care what your reasoning is, and you’re not flying that thing back, you’re going to Floo back to James’s _right now._ I am not dealing with this.”

Sirius hadn’t even gotten off the bike. He’d kicked the stand down and taken the helmet off but that was it. He felt wrong-footed, confused, cold, nervous— _so_ nervous, stomach swooping wildly.

It was like flying. Even more like flying than driving.

Fuck.

“I didn’t fly,” said Sirius, hopping off the bike at last. “I drove.”

Now Remus looked wrong-footed. He blinked. “Beg pardon?”

Sirius laughed, his short, barking laugh. It was only a little bit strained. “You don’t remember talking my ear off about how the reason enchantments on Muggle objects fail is that—how did you put it? The wizards fail to truly understand how they work first, and just slap magic on them without regard for the complexity of their engineering and design, was that it? Because I do, try as I might to forget it.”

This was all true. He hadn’t lied to James—Lily had actually said that motorbikes were as exciting as flying. It was just that Remus’s argument had got him thinking about logistics and schematics and how he was going to make the spell work, and next thing he knew the Muggle at the bike shop had recommended an instructor and why not, honestly? So he’d taught himself a bit and learned a bit from a Muggle bloke, and here he was.

“I remember,” said Remus. “I just don’t remember you listening.”

“I listen,” said Sirius, struck with a sudden desperate need to make Remus understand this. “I always listen.” He gestured at the bike. “I started learning to ride. For real. Last summer.”

“Oh,” said Remus. He didn’t say anything else. They just stood there staring at each other, until Sirius shifted uncomfortably. Motorbikes were fun, but a bit rough on the legs.

“You going to invite me in? Because if you want me to leave I’ll leave, but if you want me out right away it probably would be better if I Floo’d—it’s cold out there on the streets.”

“You don’t have to leave,” said Remus quickly. Too quickly. “Come in. Don’t get mud on the rugs, my mum’ll have a fit.”

Sirius avoided the problem entirely by taking his shoes (boots, heavy ones, because his mother lost her mind when he thunked around the house) off outside. “When I have my own flat, my rugs will be _made_ of mud,” he said, though, just on principle.

“Sure,” said Remus. “Add that to eating nothing but chocolate frogs all day, a shower drain permanently full of hair, and brushing your teeth with pumpkin juice. You’re well on your way to losing all your friends and never having anyone over, ever.”

Sirius could have thought of eight different brilliant retorts to that, but he didn’t. He just shrugged, flopped down on the nearest and most comfortable chair, and changed the subject. “Yeah, well. Where are your parents? Are they here to see me defiling their furniture?”

Remus shot him an odd look, but didn’t talk about whatever was strange to him. “Out,” he said. “They went to a play. My dad got my mum tickets for Christmas.”

“Sounds nice,” said Sirius.

“It was,” said Remus. Then, before the silence could get too awkward: “Do you want tea?”

“Do you have anything fruity? With strawberries or peaches in it?”

“No, this is a respectable house.”

“I’m good, then,” said Sirius. He sighed—this was doing nothing to help the awkwardness. He needed James for conversations like this, except he’d deliberately left James out of it.

“Well, I’m going to make some for me,” said Remus, disappearing into the kitchen and giving Sirius plenty of time to stare at Remus’s mum’s rug and wonder how much Remus hated him right now. But then Remus emerged from the kitchen with a stack of gingerbread and two mugs of tea, which he knew Sirius would drink despite his protests, and set them down so Sirius could help himself.

Which meant he wasn’t _that_ angry.

He wasn’t having any of Sirius’s crap, though.

“Why are you here?” said Remus, just as Sirius shoved a huge chunk of gingerbread in his face. Then he grinned, just a little, when Sirius promptly choked and started coughing, spraying crumbs everywhere.

“ _Scourgify_ ,” said Remus calmly, when Sirius was done, and breathing properly again. The crumbs disappeared.

“Thanks,” said Sirius. “You’re a true friend, Moony, not letting me choke to death in your living room.”

“But of course,” said Remus. “Honestly, though. Even you don’t drive that far on a motorbike in the middle of the night in December for no reason. Especially not to sit in my living room drinking tea.”

“The gingerbread, though,” said Sirius, holding up a piece as though toasting. “The gingerbread is worth it.” He took a bite, just to see Remus roll his eyes, and sighed in dramatic contentment. “That’s the stuff.”

“I’ll give you some to take back to the Potters, if you tell me what’s going on,” said Remus.

“Right,” said Sirius. He reached over and gently took the cup of tea out of Remus’s hand. “So you can’t throw it in my face,” he said. Then he took out the bar of chocolate he’d brought—he always had chocolate on hand, in case Remus wanted it—and broke off a piece, put it on top of some gingerbread, and handed it to Remus.

Remus looked at it. “Are you trying to butter me up?”

“Yes,” said Sirius.

“Right,” said Remus, and took a bite.

Sirius was a goddamn genius. He could tell from the look on Remus’s face that his gingerbread-chocolate idea was amazing, and no way would Remus risk endangering the deliciousness to punch him in the face.

Right. Might as well, then.

“I wanted to ask you what it’s like,” he said.

“What what’s like?”

“Turning into a werewolf.”

Remus didn’t answer. He finished chewing, then finished the gingerbread altogether. Then he took a sip of tea.

“You don’t have to answer,” said Sirius. “You can punch me in the face and I’ll leave. James already did it, I can take another hit, and you deserve it more.”

“James hit you?” said Remus. Sirius couldn’t read his tone.

“It was a good cause,” said Sirius.

“He wasn’t defending my honor, was he?”

“Something like that.”

“Must have been awkward to be at his house all week,” said Remus.

“Not nearly as awkward as this,” Sirius admitted.

Remus smiled—for real this time. Then he drank more tea.

When he put the cup down, he had clearly reached a decision.

“I’ll tell you,” he said.

And then he did. Sirius would never, ever repeat it to another living soul, not even James, _especially_ not James.

He had guessed some if it. The raw pain of a body rearranging itself without the will of its owner, the scratching and clawing and bleeding of a wild animal frustrated that it was penned in, with no one to hurt but itself. The bloodthirstiness, not justified by any predatory instinct, just a desire to cause _pain,_ to kill and maim and devour.

None of that was a surprise. You could read it in any book about werewolves, for one. For another, he’d seen the scars, long thin lines on Remus’s arms and legs. He healed easily from any other wound, but not his self-inflicted ones. Sirius knew that. He could even guess, from Remus’s face, how hard it was to admit to all of it.

So he watched Remus’s face more intently than he listened to the words he was saying. He noticed that his jaw clenched the most when he talked about how much he hated losing control. How he woke up every morning after, knowing exactly what he’d become but hoping he hadn’t done anything that couldn’t be undone.

Remus stopped, for a moment. His head was down, face turned away from Sirius. He seemed to be studying a pattern in the floorboards.

It was as good a moment as any.

“I’ve seen you chase your tail,” he said.

Remus looked up at him. “What?”

“As the wolf. Sometimes. In the forest, when it’s just us and James and Peter. You’ve chased your tail. And you’ve run after squirrels, barking. I think you’ve even wagged it. Your tail, I mean.”

Remus looked away from him again. “You know, that’s the worst part? That sometimes….” He stopped.

Sirius waited. He hoped Remus knew he would listen, whatever it was. He hoped he didn’t have to say anything.

He wished, briefly, that he could make it easier. That he could reach out, to touch, his shoulder, or his hand—

It wouldn’t help. He told himself that, firmly. It wouldn’t.

“Sometimes I like it,” Remus said finally, then looked as if he wished the earth would swallow him up on the spot.

“Why do you look like you just admitted to murdering your grandmother?” said Sirius. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Remus leveled a look at him that could cut through a steel beam. “Really,” he said. “Turning into a werewolf. And not hating it. You don’t see anything to be ashamed of there?”

“Well, you don’t enjoy the murderous rage,” said Sirius. “We’ve made that clear. So there must be something else you like about it, and running through the forest in the middle of the night and chasing your tail and smelling—well, you know. Everything there is to smell. I don’t see what’s wrong about liking that.”

“I don’t usually remember all of it,” said Remus. He looked down again, away from Sirius, still ashamed, still hiding.

Again, Sirius waited. Sometimes it was better to wait, with Remus. He was learning that.

He still wanted to—to reach out.

He was going to have to work on that urge.

“Usually?” he said, after a minute.

“Sometimes I dream about it,” said Remus, softly. He was laying it bare, waiting for Sirius to react.

“So do I,” Sirius said, before he could think.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Sirius. “About running, you know? It’s usually running. Sometimes I’m chasing something, but not always.” He shifted, uncomfortable with sincere emotions and wanting desperately not to run away from them this time. “I dunno, I don’t think—” he stopped. Took a deep breath. “I don’t think monsters have dreams. At least not about—that.”

Remus’s smile was small, almost pitying. “Of course they do,” he said. “The worst monsters are the human ones, after all. And no human is bad all the way through.”

Sirius snorted. He could think of a few who came close—but that was the terrifying thing, wasn’t it? He’d spent the entire summer after his first year at Hogwarts trying to make his mother laugh. The way she used to.

“Well,” he said, more harshly than he meant to. “You’re not like them. You’re not a monster.”

Remus flashed him a look, and for an instant—just an instant—Sirius saw an accusatory glint in his eyes that made him shrink. But then it vanished, gone, never happened, nothing to see here. Whatever retort he had would never see the light of day.

Sirius wanted to get it out of him. He _really_ did. If Remus would only punch him, verbally go for the gut and twist the knife, they might’ve been able to work it out sooner, and go back to normal.

But Remus, he was starting to realize, just wasn’t like that. It was going to take time. And thinking of the burning pain when James had punched him in the eye—Sirius thought maybe he only had himself to blame for needing to take that time. He couldn’t even offer the comfort of _that_ touch, any more than a hand to a shoulder or—anything else.

So he offered the second-best thing he could think of.

“Do you dream about running too?” he said into the heavy silence of Remus’s making.

Remus wasn’t looking at him, but he said “Yes,” just loud enough for him to hear.

“It’s great, right?” It sounded stupid out loud, but Remus was smiling faintly. “The chase, even when you’re not chasing anything—and you can go so _fast_ , there’s nothing about having two legs again that’s as good.”

“I suppose,” said Remus. “You don’t think flying compares?”

“You don’t think so,” said Sirius. “I know you don’t, or you’d be up on a broom as much as me and James are.”

Remus shrugged. “It’s not bad,” he said, which was Remus for “it’s bad and wrong and I hate it.”

“Right,” said Sirius. “You hate it because you’d rather be on the ground, right? Running.”

“What’s your point, Sirius?”

Sirius grinned, the grin he knew was sharp and reckless, and that he hoped would dare Remus to say yes. “Ever ridden a motorbike?”  
  


He had miscalculated. He had miscalculated _so badly_ that it was going to take him several months just to do all the equations to figure out exactly what had made him even try to calculate anything in the first place, because it had all gone horribly, horribly wrong, and he didn’t even know where to start. Holy shit, it had gone so wrong.

But it hadn’t been his fault, really, you know? Right? How could he have known? How could he, Sirius Black, first (and recently disowned) son of the House of Black, have predicted this absolute shocker of a plot twist? It’s not as though he’d ever had occasion to ride on a motorbike with another person. Right? Right??

It was possible he was a little hysterical. A problem, because he had to focus on driving. Thank Merlin and all the stars in heaven and Nargles in the sky that there was no—what was the word? Triferc? Traferc? Triffafack?—this late at night. At the very least, there was that.

In any case, there was absolutely no way, in any universe whatsoever, that this was remotely his fault, because he could not have known that in order to ride double on a motorbike, the second person had to be entirely pressed up against the driver, arms around the waist, holding on tight, no way around it, it’s that or you’re dead, oh god, oh god, _oh god_.

He should’ve taken James out on the bike first. Or Peter. Or Peter! It would not have been as pleasant, certainly, but _much less awkward_. Anyone would be better this. Maybe Doris Carter? Maggie Underwood? _Anyone_. Still pleasant, less awkward, they were nice girls, lovely, funny—shit, even, what was his name, Will Davies? It was hard to think of people besides Remus right now, but honestly—someone attractive but who definitely was _not_ his second-best friend in the whole world who he’d recently almost gotten killed and was trying to apologize to and was now really the time? Really?

Okay, so he was definitely hysterical.

Plus, every time Remus shifted, even a little, his stomach swooped.

He was going faster to compensate. Taking more dangerous turns. This only made Remus clutch him more tightly.

Oh, god.

Remus broke his spiraling train of thought, just a bit, by pinching him hard, hard enough to feel it through the leather jacket. Sirius tried desperately to snap out of it, and appeased his friend—FRIEND—by pulling over to the side of the road.

“Well, that hurt,” he said, once he had the helmet off. “Something wrong?”

Remus took his helmet (helpfully conjured for him by Sirius) off too. His face was flushed red, hair sticking on end, and there was the stomach swooping again. Sirius had to abruptly turn around so he could hop off the bike and lean on it nonchalantly and have an excuse to stare properly, what was _wrong_ with him, everything was terrible. Everything.

“First of all,” oh right Remus was speaking, and he was also off the motorbike now, looking a little nervous but trying to hide it, “please try to _not_ get me killed, I’ve already had too many close calls recently.”

“I’m glad you’re joking about this,” said Sirius, still trying desperately to regain his composure. “It’s not like I haven’t been beating myself half to death over this for the last months.”

“Oh, I’m _so_ sorry, that must have been _so hard_ for you,” said Remus. Sirius winced, just a bit. That wasn’t playful sarcasm in Remus’s voice.

“Have I mentioned yet how sorry I am,” he offered.

“Once or twice. That’s not the point. The point is, maybe you enjoy nearly breaking your neck, but can’t we just—not?”

“What, am I going too hard and fast for you?” said Sirius, before his brain could interfere. Oh no. He was going to blush. Yes, there it was. It was happening. Blushing was a thing that was happening.

Remus didn’t blush, or notice Sirius blushing. He rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s it, definitely, Sirius. Have you considered that for some of us, riding a motorbike, or running, might be better with more buildup?” If he heard the choking noise Sirius made, he ignored it. “You know, instead of going tearing off right away, start out slow and build up speed, until—”

“Until you hit the middle of the field and there’s nothing but wide open sky and grass,” said Sirius, because he could see the innuendo, but he also knew what Remus was actually asking for. “Yes, I see what you mean. Er—”

Remus looked at him.

He coughed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. It was just—nervous energy?”

Remus was still looking at him.

“What?”

“Are you sure you weren’t kidnapped in the night and replaced by someone who shaved your head and made Polyjuice Potion out of your hair?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” said Sirius, with as much dignity as he could muster.

“It’s just, you know, this apologizing thing, I’m not complaining exactly, but it is a little odd, I didn’t even know you _knew_ the word sorry—”

“All right, well, I get it, you don’t have to—”

“And if the real Sirius Black _has_ been kidnapped, again I wouldn’t necessarily say the replacement is _worse_ but I would like to know, so I can at least give my friend a proper funeral—”

“Why would you assume I’m dead?! I could escape a kidnapper!”

“You know I’ve met you, right? The only way they’d get any of your hair is if they murdered you first, come on, be realistic.”

“Okay, fair, I think you’ve made your—”

“Does James know? Is James in on this? How deep does this conspiracy go, Sirius—if that is your real name—Black?”

“Right,” said Sirius, putting his helmet back on, climbing back on the bike, and hoping the helmet effectively hid his grin. Remus was teasing him again. This was the best night of his life. “See if I ever say anything nice to you ever again.”

“What was that? I can’t hear you through the helmet, but it sounded more characteristic of the Sirius I know, maybe it is you after all, if you could just speak up—”

“Get on the damn motorbike, Moony.”

Remus hopped up behind him and resumed his place, pressed up against Sirius’s back, which, while still terrifying, wasn’t—wasn’t bad. It was nice. And he could swear, unlikely as it was, that he could feel Remus smirking. Behind the helmet and everything.

“Right,” said Sirius, though he knew it was probably hard to hear him. “Empty highway. I can do that. I can totally do this.”

“Are you trying to convince yourself or me?” said Remus, proving that he had sneaky werewolf ears and definitely heard Sirius just fine this whole time. Thank god he hadn’t talked to himself by accident at any point, who knows what filth would’ve dropped out of his disgusting mind and into his mouth, and oKAY, end that thought right there, Black.

Two could play at this game, though. To avoid answering, Sirius revved the engine as loud as he could, nearly drowning out Remus’s laughter, and just like that they were back on the road.  
  


James absolutely did not wait up for Sirius. Not even a little bit. He did plan to make excuses for him when he failed to materialize, because he was an excellent friend, but that forethought proved unnecessary, when Sirius came in right through the front door in the middle of breakfast.

Well, James’s breakfast, anyway. He was on holiday, and the idea of waking up before noon on his day off was, in his opinion, frankly disgusting.

“There you are, dear,” said James’s mum, who definitely had some sort of second sight to tell her when someone was coming in her house unannounced. “I was starting to wonder where you disappeared to. Do you want some bacon? James ate most of it, as usual, but I can make more if you like.”

“No, I’m—it’s all right,” said Sirius. “I had breakfast already, er—at the Lupin’s. I brought you some gingerbread,” he added, holding up a tray wrapped in towels that he must have had a hell of a time balancing on the motorbike. Unless he had some kind of basket? Or floating charm? James would have to ask.

“Oh, is that where you were? Did you have a good time?” said James’s mum, taking the tray from him. “This looks lovely, I’ll have to send Mrs. Lupin a thank-you note.”

“Er—yes, I did, I—you’re not—you’re not mad?”

“Should I be? Did you get into trouble?”

“Well, no, it was fine, but I did…leave in the middle of the night without telling you?”

James closed his eyes briefly, in sympathy for the stupidity leaking out of his best friend. Why, _why_ would he tell her that? Had he learned nothing?!

“You’re seventeen, dear, if you want to take off for a friend’s house at odd hours of the night, that’s your prerogative. Unless you get in trouble, of course, but I hope that coming of age means you know well enough not to get into any trouble you can’t get yourself out of.” James blinked in owl-eyed shock while his mum patted Sirius on the shoulder, and disappeared into the kitchen. “Sure you don’t want anymore bacon?” she called over her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” said Sirius, sitting down next to James and stealing a piece of bacon from his plate.

“Prick,” said James, purely as a reflex. He still wasn’t sure exactly what had just happened. “Is she going to be that easy on me when I turn seventeen?”

Sirius shrugged, and crunched down on another piece of James’s bacon.

“Well?” said James, after what he felt was plenty of time waiting for Sirius to fucking say something already.

“You get water from one,” said Sirius without batting an eyelash.

James resisted the urge to throw something at his friend’s smug face, and rolled his eyes instead. “Now I know you definitely hung out with Moony and he didn’t kill you,” he said. “That’s exactly the kind of joke you’d make just to annoy him.”

Sirius frowned at him, for some reason. “I don’t make jokes just for Remus,” he said.

James stared. “Yes? You do? One time you spent an entire three days making scone-based puns until he threatened to throw you off the Astronomy tower and feed your body to the Acromantulas?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Don’t tell me that wasn’t just for his sake, you knew he’d be the most annoyed. Moony _hates_ puns.”

“He really does,” said Sirius, smiling faintly. “But—”

“Quit trying to distract me,” James ordered. “C’mon, tell me. How was it? Did you leave the bike with him, is he taking it to his dad’s—what did you call it? Mechanalist?”

“Mechanic,” Sirius corrected, then shifted uncomfortably. “Uh—”

“Don’t tell me it’s gone for more than two weeks,” James said. “We’re back at Hogwarts before then, mate, you can’t hold out on me like that—”

“No, it’s—shut up for a minute, will you?” Sirius sighed, for some reason. “Listen, can we—go—somewhere? Not here?”

James blinked, but understood immediately when Sirius raised significant eyebrows at the nearby parlor, where his mum and dad were peacefully reading the newspaper. They weren’t the eavesdropping type, but some things you just couldn’t help, and whatever was going on clearly demanded privacy. He stood up to clear the table, and Sirius helped him, even taking care of the dishes with a quick flick of his wand.

When James looked at Sirius, he shrugged. “Save someone else the trouble,” he said, ears reddening. James decided not to push it, opting instead to just clamber up the stairs to his room behind Sirius

“There was no mechanic,” Sirius said, immediately, once the door was shut and he was sitting in James’s chair, long legs propped up on his (little-used) desk.

“Okay,” said James, because whatever was going on seemed urgent even if it didn’t make sense yet. “Then what—”

“I took him out on the bike,” Sirius said, all in a rush. Like a confession.

Which it _was._

“You _what._ ”

“It was important,” said Sirius. “Don’t ask me to explain, just—are you seriously pointing your wand at me?”

“Explain,” James growled.

Sirius sagged. “I can’t.”

“Not good enough.”

“Still true, though.”

There was a brief, tense, moment, where James glared and Sirius met his eyes solidly, no explanation but no apology either.

James lowered his wand.

“Will you tell me what the hell is going on with you,” he said.

Now Sirius looked shifty, slid his eyes away from James but couldn’t seem to decide where else to look.

“I may have miscalculated,” he said finally.

“That’s _definitely_ true,” said James.

“No, not—not that. It had to be done, James, I can’t explain, it’s—a dog thing.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” said Sirius quickly. “The point is, I took Moony for a ride, and it was the first time I’ve ridden with another person, and I, uh. I didn’t realize.”

James waited.

Sirius sighed.

“Okay, I didn’t realize, when you ride with another person, there’s no _space_ between the two of you, you have to ride with them pressed up against your back with their arms around your waist and I think we rode at least twenty miles like that? I think? And it was torture, Prongs, _torture_ , what was I _thinking_ , and then I stayed there all _night,_ and said goodbye to his _mum_ , and—”

“Stop,” said James, whose head was spinning. He needed a minute to process this. “Wait, Padfoot, are you saying you—wait, _really_?”

Sirius looked back at him. He was deadly—well, there was no other way to say it. He was serious.

“Merlin’s pants,” James breathed. “How long?”

“I dunno? I didn’t— _know_ —until—”

“Right,” said James. He had a brief, intense vision of driving that motorbike with someone pressed up against _his_ back, and, just for an example, say it was Lily Evans— “Say, Pads, could you teach me to drive? D’you think Li—”

“No,” said Sirius.

“But—”

“Maybe,” said Sirius. “You’re taking this well.”

James flapped his hand. “Please, like I didn’t notice you drooling after Will Davies all last year. They can see your bisexuality from space, Pads, face it. D’you think Lily would wear a leather jacket? Where can I get a leather jacket?”

“No they can’t, or I’d have been disowned a lot sooner,” said Sirius darkly. “James, what do I _do_?”

“About what?” said James, who was now thinking about leather jackets and tight Muggle jeans, and dangerous turns that would require someone behind him to cling even tighter—”

“James. I am definitely not teaching you shit if you don’t quit fantasizing _right in front of me_.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” said James before his mouth caught up with him. “I mean. Uh.”

“Oh, god, forget it, I don’t even know why I asked you.”

“No, no, I can do this,” said James. “I am a font of wisdom and knowledge. My inner enlightenment runs as deep as the ocean, as clear as the sky on a cloudless night. I will bestow upon you my hard-earned—”

“I will turn you purple and hang you out of the window by your thumbs,” Sirius said.

“Don’t threaten me, Black, _you_ took Moony out on the motorbike before you took me.”

“I told you, it was important.”

“And _I_ told _you_ , I have no idea what that even means. Look, you just need to tell him.”

Sirius stared. “Right, I’m glad you’re not taking this even remotely seriously, sorry I even brought it up—”

“No, I’m serious. Sirius. I’m serious about this, Sirius. I—”

“Purple with green polka-dots,” said Sirius.

“I mean it though,” said James. “Just tell him. Shouldn’t be that hard, you’ve said worse to him.”

Now Sirius’s expression shifted to something James could only describe as “miserable.” “That’s the thing, though, after everything I—”

“And I don’t see your corpse bleeding out on my floor, do I?” James interrupted. “Which tells me he’s actually _forgiven_ you for nearly causing him to murder someone, and that can’t mean nothing.” He didn’t realize until he said it out loud, but as soon as he did he knew it was true. “ _And_ he let you take him on that bike, and you know how Remus feels about…you doing dangerous things. Which now that I think about it, he never objects that strongly about any of them, does he? He just…goes along with them and keeps you from getting in too much trouble…wow, he really _does_ like you.”

Sirius groaned. “Don’t joke with me, Prongs, I can’t take it. I’ll just do what you’re the worst at, and suffer in silence. Forever. Forever sounds good, don’t you think?”

“No, I mean it,” said James, warming up to his subject. “Now that I think about it, you know? Three days of scone puns just to get him to threaten you with bodily harm? You might as well be pulling his pigtails!”

“I would never,” said Sirius, offended. “Anyone who touches my hair needs to die, I don’t touch other people’s, why would I do that to someone I actually like?”

“ _Plus,_ ” James continued, ignoring him, “you followed it up with a basket of scones just for him as a peace offering and claimed it was your plan all along, Merlin, you _are_ transparent aren’t you? And then you spent all that money at Christmas last year—”

“I spent money on you, too!”

“Not like _that_ ,” said James significantly. “Also the whole dog thing…late night motorbike rides…you rode all that way in December just to see him and everything—Sirius, are you sure you just now realized?”

Sirius had melted out of his chair and flopped down onto the floor, face-first. “I hate you so much.”

“What was that, your voice was muffled by the carpet,” James said gleefully. Oh, this was _so good_. “Wow, Padfoot, you really are thick, what does he see in you?”

Sirius turned his head just enough to glare daggers. “You didn’t know either!”

“I had other things to think about,” said James loftily. “Other, important, all-knowing fountain of benevolent wisdom things.”

“Lily Evans’s left eyebrow, you mean.”

James sighed. It was a nice eyebrow. “It’s just, she has this trick of raising it _just so_ —”

“Oh dear lord,” Sirius said, and managed to find enough energy to get up and hit him in the face with a pillow. Which ended the conversation, but James reflected later that he’d definitely made his point.  
  


James thought—perhaps foolishly—that everything was fixed. That Remus and Sirius had talked it out, worked out their problem, and that it would only be a matter of time before Sirius cracked and said something. All he had to do was push him in the right direction. Right?

Wrong. Oh, so very, _very_ wrong.

If he’d known then that he was in for four solid months of pining, he would have pushed them both off the highest tower he could find and attempted to run away with Peter to Albania. Which would have been a disaster, as ol’ Pete wasn’t really the type you went on the run with, but _Merlin’s saggy left ball._ HELP.

It was so bad that for the entire month of March, he forgot to flirt with Lily Evans. He didn’t even realize what was happening until she started shooting him confused looks in the hallways—and when he did realize, he found himself so obscurely relieved that apparently he was capable of controlling his big mouth, that he stopped altogether, just for the novelty of it. It also had dawned on him, dimly, that her always being angry at him meant maybe she hated being talked to like that, plus she still didn’t believe he actually meant any of it. So it wasn’t such a hardship to stop. At least for a while.

Anyway, he had bigger things on his mind. Aside from the rumblings coming from the more haughty and conservative Purebloods, aside from Sirius being _ridiculous,_ there was also the fact that—

There was no other way to put it. Things weren’t fixed.

Remus was still angry.

James could not have explained to an outsider how he knew this. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure if _Remus_ knew it. But what else could it mean, that Remus left rooms when he and Sirius entered them, ignored them to do homework even when Sirius made godawful puns to get attention, and looked at Peter blankly when he suggested nicking chocolate pastries from the kitchen? Remus’s moral reservations usually disappeared when it came to chocolate, but lately he acted like the idea made no sense to him.

It was bad enough watching Sirius tie himself in knots thinking of stupid stunts to do to get Moony’s attention, but there was something worse, worse than the puns and the homework—all of this suggested that Remus wasn’t just mad at Sirius, he was mad at _James, too_.

What.

Impossible as it seemed, after three weeks of this absurd treatment, James was forced to accept that this hypothesis was true. Remus had stopped making snide remarks under his breath during History of Magic lessons, the ones he knew would make James cackle loudly and repeat them for the benefit of the rest of the class. James had fallen asleep four times in that class lately, without Remus to keep him alert, and woken up both times to Sirius putting fireworks down the back of his robes and claiming it was Peter’s idea. Remus hadn’t even looked up from taking notes.

Taking _notes_ , in _History of Magic_. The whole thing was spinning wildly out of control.

So he did the only thing he could think of: cornered Remus in the library.

Then, after turning Remus’s hair several lurid colors, causing a ruckus and getting them both kicked out of the library, he pulled Remus into an empty classroom, ignoring his protests.

“ _What_ , James, I was working on that sodding Potions essay—”

“No you weren’t, you were just reading. A Muggle novel, by the looks of it. Hand it over.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve got it in your hand, there. Let me see it, I want to know what was so much better than hanging out with me.”

Remus stared, the request apparently so odd that he couldn’t refuse. He handed the book over.

“The Count of—who? Never heard of him,” James said. “Wha’d he do, then?”

“Read the back, you illiterate baboon,” said Remus. He didn’t sound _as_ annoyed as before. Asking him about books always threw him off. It was a good strategy—he’d have to teach it to Sirius, come to think of it.

James did as he was told and flipped the book over, lips moving as he read about a bloke being tossed into prison then breaking out and—”What?! Moony, this sounds brilliant! I thought you were reading some kind of—dry tosser book, not this—can I borrow this?”

“No!” Remus said, snatching it back. “I’ve seen what you do to books, you—you _barbarian_ , don’t come near my paperbacks!”

“Merlin, fine, okay, have it then. Where’d you get it? Can you get me one? If you don’t get me one can you tell me what happens?”

“Fine, yes, I’ll get you your own,” said Remus. “Or you can borrow Sirius’s, if he knows where he put it. Are we done? Because it was getting good—”

“You gave _Sirius_ a copy and didn’t tell me?!?” James said, now outraged beyond words. “Moony, what the _hell_. What did I ever do to you?”

Remus was staring again, as though James had grown a second head, which—James quickly touched both his shoulders to check—he most certainly had not. “Er—nothing? Look, I do actually have homework—”

“So you are angry,” said James.

Remus stopped. And held very still, before he said, “What?”

James hopped up to sit on the desk at the front of the room. “I knew it,” he said. “You can act like everything’s dandy and all is forgiven now that you’ve had a midnight motorbike ride—” Remus’s ears turned _very_ pink at that, which was interesting, and he opened his mouth to argue, but James wasn’t done, “—but you’re not fooling me, and I doubt you’re fooling him. C’mon, Moony. You’re still mad. Do something about it. Have you tried punching him? It worked for me.”

“I’m not going to punch anyone,” said Remus, looking suddenly very weary. “And I’m not angry, all right? I’m just—”

“Sure you are,” James interrupted. He was starting to get impatient. “Because of him you almost murdered someone, that’s not the sort of thing you can just get over.”

Now Remus was glaring at him. “Will you let it go?” He snapped. “You’ve already made it abundantly clear whose side you’re on, there’s no need to rub it in.”

James’s eyes widened and he sat back on his hands, looking at his friend. He looked embarrassed almost immediately, but there was a steely glint in his eye that was backed up by what James suspected was the reason he hadn’t apologized or stormed out of the room.

Really, once you got Moony’s back up, he could snarl as dangerously— _more_ dangerously—than any of them, even Padfoot.

“So that’s it,” he said, just as the silence became awkward and Remus started to look apologetic. “You know I had to have him over at my house.”

Remus wilted a bit. “No, I know, I just—”

“He’s my best mate, I’m not leaving him out on the street—”

“Of course, I’m sorry, look—”

“But you’re not wrong,” said James, which finally shut Remus up. He shrugged at Remus’s stare. “You’re my best mate too, y’know? You can have more than one.”

Remus shook his head. “Not like Sirius,” he said. “I will ever be what Sirius is to you.”

James snorted. “I’ll never be what he is to _you_ , either,” he said, before he could think.

It was Remus’s turn to widen his eyes, except he looked a little terrified.

James flapped a hand dismissively. “Oh, who cares? I don’t,” he said. “Mind, if you ever care like that about any other bloke who sends people down into a tunnel for you to murder them, I’ll have to step in for your own safety—again—but, I suspect this predates said attempted tunnel murder, and you’re all wound up inside over the betrayal and whatnot. What, what’s that look, did I miss something?”

Remus groaned, and flopped down into an empty chair, _finally_. “I hate you, Prongs,” he said from between hands that were now covering his face. “I really, really do.”

James grinned, dropping down from the desk. If he was saying that, everything was probably fine. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “God, you’re both idiots.”

“You know you’re literally the worst at relationships, right?” said Remus, dropping his hands to look at him. “And that you have absolutely no room to talk?”

“Unimportant,” said James magnanimously. He grinned, noticing Remus’s flinch when he did. Hmm, must be the look that Sirius called “manic and terrifying, stop it.” “So, you gonna tell him or what?”

“No,” said Remus. “No no no no no _no_. I am not doing this. Holy hell, I am not doing this with you _or anyone_ , ever, goodbye, nice knowing you, I’ll send you a postcard from Siberia—”

James dragged him from the door back to his chair and sat him down again, grinning at Remus’s baleful face. “Okay, okay, no advice. But you should really tell him. No, okay! No advice! No meddling! I promise!”

Remus sighed. Heavily. “Did you want anything else, then? Now that I’ve been properly humiliated?”

“Nah,” said James. “Unless you wanna punch me in the face. C’mon, you can if you want, I know you have a mean right hook.”

“I’m not punching you in the face,” Remus said, although it was a little less final than last time. Progress. “C’mon, Sirius and Pete are probably wondering where the hell we are, and are getting mad that we’re plotting without them.”

“Oh, true,” said James, following him out the door. “We haven’t done a proper prank in a while, speaking of, d’you think—”

“No,” said Remus. “I’m on thin enough ice as it is.

James snorted. “For something that wasn’t remotely your fault? You’d better not be, I’ll burn the place down.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this, you can’t force everyone to be tolerant by lighting them on fire.”

“Maybe _you_ can’t,” James muttered.

This was an old argument. Remus ignored him. “And even if you’re right—Sirius is on even thinner ice.”

“Knew you cared,” James said, grinning. Then, because Remus was being sarcastic and dry and witty again, and it was _so great_ , he caught his friend in a headlock and tousled his hair, just for the hell of it.

“Ow, what the—James!” Remus elbowed him in the stomach, _hard_ , and then kicked him when he went down. “I am not fighting in the corridors,” he said sternly. “But I will find Lily Evans and get her to take away points if you do that again.”

“What—you wouldn’t! Traitor!”

“Watch me,” Remus said, then turned, stalking off down the corridor.

“Rude,” said James, running to catch up with him. “Fine, I’ll get you back in the Common Room.”

Remus’s eyes glinted. “You can try,” he informed James.

James swallowed. Right. Werewolf. Freakishly strong. Could rip him limb from limb. He forgot, usually, except at moments like this. “Sorry,” he said.

“Sure you are,” said Remus, but less mullishly. “Think of something that has nothing to do with Slytherins,” he added.

“What?”

“For whatever prank you’re planning. Don’t target the Slytherins, and keep it funny rather than embarrassing. Y’know. Lighten the mood, a bit. Use your powers for good for once.”

“Something that’ll make McGonagall pretend she’s not laughing,” said James thoughtfully. “And make Dumbledore actually laugh.”

“Exactly.”

James grinned. It was good to have his friend back. “You are safe from my revenge for now, O Moony of the Moonius Tribe,” he said. “Let us retire to the Common Room and we shall put this vile plot into action most foul and frivolous!”

“That doesn’t—oh, god,” said Remus, now half-running to keep up. “This mood is going to take forever to pass, isn’t it?”

“You speak wisely, though your words art foolish,” James informed him. “Forsooth! Duty awaits!”

“I will turn you orange with purple polka-dots and hang you outside the Common Room by your thumbs,” Remus mumbled, but he followed James back to said Common Room.

James, for his part, smirked, but only to himself, and not outwardly. Actually he didn’t smirk at all, but he did feel _very_ smug. He had succeeded, and Remus and Sirius were rubbing off on each other. Ha.

Now he just had to get the two idiots to talk to each other properly.  
  


Peter, of all people, was the one to finally give James an idea of what to do. Like all the best Pettigrew ideas, it was purely by accident and he didn’t even know what he was doing when he said it, but it was absolutely perfect all the same.

And the best part of all was that all he actually did was complain about rabbits.

Specifically, how Sirius and Remus couldn’t help but chase them every full moon. Every damn time, he said. And he got that they were dogs, you know? But couldn’t they just leave the rabbits alone? It was scary to be chased by predators! And it was really annoying for him and James to have to hunt them down and figure out where the hell they had gone just because of a bunch of bunnies—

“They’re fun to chase, though,” Sirius said, grinning because he knew how annoying he was being. “Right, Moony?”

Remus hummed and made a change to his Arithmancy homework, but James could see a faint smile poking out.

“Anyway, James is a prey animal too and he doesn’t hate it.”

James shrugged. He wasn’t about to admit that as a deer, being chased by a dog and a wolf was also not his idea of a fun time. Instead, he said, “You do look silly, chasing them with your tongue flopping out.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Well, you look silly running around with those stupid things on the top of your head, but you don’t hear me saying anything about that.”

“You just did,” said Remus. “Also, you literally named him after them.”

“Heh, true,” said Sirius. And exchanged a look with Remus that James would once have thought of as a conversation in their secret dog-language, but now thought of as “Merlin’s pants, the sexual tension, I can’t take it anymore, please for the love of god get a room so I can move on with my life and stop worrying about whether my best friends are ever going to snog it out, I’m begging you.”

“At least I can go twenty minutes around rabbits without having to chase them,” James said, instead of saying something that had no chance of ending well.

“I can do it when I’m human,” said Sirius. “I don’t chase anyone’s toads or cats, do I? C’mon, Moony, back me up.”

Remus looked at him skeptically. “You do twitch a little when you see them,” he said.

“Why does everyone I love betray me,” said Sirius.

“Because if we filled the castle with rabbits, you’d lose what’s left of your mind,” said James.

There was a short silence, in which Peter’s eyes widened, Remus put down his quill and covered his eyes, and Sirius looked indignant and then abruptly thoughtful.

“If we started small—” Sirius began, at the same time as James said, “Just one or two at first—” and they both stopped, staring at each other. Then Remus groaned and rolled up his homework with an air of resignation, which was how James knew it was a good idea.

Peter, on the other hand, sighed. “Maybe this’ll get it out of his system?”

“Not a chance,” said Remus. “It’s the way they hop. He’ll never get sick of it.”

Sirius grinned at him. Remus smiled back. James contemplated jumping out of a window.

“So should we find a spell to make them multiply, or get a male and a female in here and let nature take its course?” said Remus, and like that, the Marauders were all business.

“You think they’d need someone to show them how it’s done, just in case?” said Sirius, leaning into Remus’s space, and leering. “Because the mechanics would be different but I think we could manage, you know, for the sake of the prank—”

Remus swatted him with his homework, and Sirius barked a laugh.

James grinned, and grinned wider when he shot Sirius a knowing look and Sirius turned a bit red.

Well. They were mostly business, anyway.  
  


It was working. It was working _so well._

James was dizzy with it, watching Sirius twitch every time he saw a rabbit out of the corner of his eye. And there was a rabbit around almost all the time, now. As discussed, they’d started out small, just one or two popping up in various Common Rooms, to some people’s delight and other’s (Snape’s) disgust. And then it had just…escalated.

There were rabbits _everywhere_.

He had been slightly worried about the fate of any small furry animal that wound up in the Slytherin dungeons (and what Lily would have done to him if she found out about it, and that he’d been the one to send them to their doom). Luckily, Peter had come through with a network of complex protection spells not seen before or hence on anything quite so small and insignificant. Probably not on anything big or important, either. But Peter was surprisingly handy with spells like that, provided they were small-scale. It was only when the task at hand was bigger that he cracked under pressure.

None of this was the point. The point was that there really were rabbits everywhere, and it was driving Sirius absolutely mad.

Mind, he didn’t always look entirely insane, not to the untrained eye. He still managed to exchange knowing and gleeful looks with James whenever they talked to someone or overheard someone talking about the Plague of Rabbits (as the Ravenclaws were apparently calling it, because of course they were).

They also learned that apparently the Hufflepuff Common Room was nearly overrun, as the rabbits were extremely fond of it, and the Hufflepuffs a bit over-fond of them. James had seen several Hufflepuffs walk the halls with rabbits jumping all over their shoulders and heads, carrying on conversations as though they didn’t notice, and honestly, bless Hufflepuffs. The world really would be a darker place without them, even if his own House’s reaction of attempting to train them to race each other was more his speed.

The Ravenclaws _might_ have been trying out experiments on them. Their protection spellwork didn’t prevent the natural weirdness of Hogwarts—and, well, it was Ravenclaw. There wasn’t much that could stop them when they were really curious about something. Or bored. A bored Ravenclaw was also very _very_ bad, almost as bad as bored Sirius. James had heard rumors of a rabbit with fangs hopping out of their Tower—but then straight towards the Slytherin dormitories, so he didn’t feel the need to interfere. Even Remus, when he heard that, had just grimaced and said that it was best to stay out of the way of anything cooked up in the Ravenclaw Tower at 3 am.

Sirius had said they could all give the Marauders a run for their money in prank-playing if they could just muster up the attention span, and maybe they should team up with them, and Remus had said he was one to talk about short attention spans, and Sirius had said yes, but for _important_ things he was extremely focused—and James had tuned out because they were flirting again and Lily Evans had just absentmindedly handed him a rabbit that had hopped into her arms, then wandered off. It was the most contact he’d had with her all year. He was going to write a poem about it.

Anyway. Where was he?

Oh, right. Sirius. Sirius, who was ostensibly eating dinner but also twitching, slightly at every tell-tale _thump_ that meant a furry little friend was hopping nearby.

James snickered.

Sirius whipped his head around and glared at him.

“Got something to say, Prongsy?”

“No,” said James. It was crucial that he pretend he didn’t notice what was going on—Sirius was sure to give up sooner if he didn’t get his back up. Instead, he tilted his chin towards the Head Table. “McGonagall’s face, mate. I want a picture of it framed in my future house.”

Sirius snorted, then nudged Remus, who nudged Peter, so they could all watch in fascination as McGonagall shot a despairing look at Dumbledore, who was patiently feeding a piece of lettuce to a small rabbit that scooted steadily closer to him as it nibbled.

“Fuck that, I want a picture of Dumbledore right now,” Sirius breathed, as the tiny tiny rabbit hopped onto the brim of his hat. It was so small that Dumbledore’s enormous hat could support its weight. Everyone who noticed looked too enthralled to even “aww” over it.

The Slytherin table looked disgusted, and no one could even side with them over it, because it was just _rabbits_.

“This is the best idea I’ve ever had,” said James fervently.

“Filch is going to lose his mind,” said Remus.

“Who cares? It’s not as if they’re making a mess,” said Sirius. It was true—the droppings vanished immediately when they appeared. It had been a tricky spell, but worth it. Even the Marauders didn’t particularly want to spend all day wading through rabbit dung, much as Snape’s face would have been epic. “And yesterday I heard two Ravenclaws arguing _passionately_ about what they’re even eating, it was brilliant. I dropped the idea that maybe they were living off of Malfoy’s hair supplies.”

“Tell me they didn’t believe that,” said Remus.

“No,” Sirius sighed. “That one went over better with the Hufflepuffs, honestly. They’re spreading it all over the school, bless them. Anyway, I threw out that maybe it was the concentrated magical energy of Hogwarts, once again warping reality, only this time into rabbit form—you should’ve seen their faces, they were so excited. Pushed right past me to run off to the library. Adorable.”

“Poor things,” said Remus. “You really shouldn’t wind them up so.”

“Well, it’s not as if I can give away our secrets, is it? And I still think you should’ve let me rig the Vanishing spell to send all the droppings to the Slytherin dungeon.” James noticed that even as he said this, he twitched, just a little, almost imperceptibly, as another rabbit hopped across the table.

“The point of this prank was not to target the Slytherins,” said James, the epitome of maturity. “Aggravating them was just an added bonus.”

“We really went tame with this one, didn’t we, lads?” said Peter. “They’re even…what’s that word you used, Remus? Hypo-algertenic?”

“You did half the spellwork on this one, how did you forget the word for it?” said Sirius, only a little bit scathingly. His mind wasn’t in it—too busy twitching.

“Allergenic,” said Remus, who, come to think of it, was also looking a bit distracted lately. “And you know it’s only because Madam Pomfrey would’ve had our heads if she’d had to deal with a slew of sneezing students.”

“Yes, remember the thing with the bats?” said James. “Best not to anger that woman. That wasn’t the point either.”

“What _was_ the point, then?” said Sirius. “Why do we do anything if not to annoy those slimy git bastard snakes?”

“That doesn’t—” Remus started, but James interrupted him, grinning.

“All shall be revealed in time,” he said.

Sirius glared.

“You have to admit you’re starting to crack.”

“I am _not_ ,” said Sirius. Well, so much for not getting his back up.

“C’mon, admit it. Even Moony’s self-control is going, and you know his is iron-clad.”

“What? Remus is fine! Look at him! Doesn’t even notice the things!”

“Of course he does! He stares at them, looking vacant but also a bit hungry,” said James. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“What now?” said Remus, snapping out of the bunny-induced trance he had definitely been in.

“Exactly,” said James, and grinned even wider when they gave him annoyed and confused looks, respectively. “C’mon, Black. You’re losing your grip. Just admit it.”

“Never, Potter. This is _war_.”

“Have it your way,” said James, getting up from the table. McGonagall had just practically dragged Dumbledore out by his arm, and he had places to be. Things to do.

“Where are you going?” said Peter. “And what are you talking about, anyway?”

“Ah, Wormtail. So many mysterious things are unfolding. Come with me, my friend, and I shall show you the secrets of the universe.”

Peter looked down at his empty plate, and shrugged. “Go on, then. Where are we going?”

James threw an arm across his shoulders, and used his other hand to push Sirius back into his seat. “Not you, Pads. You…you and dear Moony have _things_ you need to get out of your system.”

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “I’m only saying. If you can’t chase…perhaps a ride would clear your head?” He winked, added, “Just think about it,” and turned and steered Peter away before they could have any more awkward conversations. Or before Remus and Sirius’s twin glares could burn a hole through him.

Ah, those two kids were going to be just fine.  
  


Sirius winced a little under the long look Remus gave him, but didn’t actually break his gaze.

“Yeah, all right,” he said after a minute. “I hid the bike near Hogsmeade when we came back from break.”

“James knows where?”

“No,” he said. “He just knows me, I suppose.”

Remus looked at him a moment longer, then huffed a laugh. “Right,” he said. “Let’s go, then.”

There was a pause. Then,

“What?”  
  


“What?” said Peter. “You’re joking. You’re _joking._ ”

“I’m not,” said James. “The password’s ‘butterbeer figments’ and we have about three minutes before they’ll catch us, what d’you say?”

He didn’t exactly wait for Peter to agree, just strode ahead, confident that he’d follow along. He always did, after all.

“Why didn’t you bring Sirius, then?” Peter said, scrambling to keep up.

“He’s got other things on his mind,” said James vaguely. They’d reached Dumbledore’s office. “Ready?”

Peter still looked dubious, but he nodded, obviously trying to look enthusiastic. “Of course.”  
  


“Of course,” said Remus, with a wry twist to his mouth. “Am I ever not ready?”

Sirius’s heart backflipped sideways, did a few twists, then settled on thumping much too hard. He tried very, very hard to look casual, which was much easier when sitting astride a motorbike. “Climb on, then.”

“You didn’t enchant it to fly yet, did you?”

“Still working on the enchantment,” Sirius admitted. “I borrowed some spells from the Knight Bus so I can get it from here to the road—wouldn’t have been able to get it up to these caves without them.”

“Or out of them,” Remus said. “I did wonder.”

“Exactly. But that’s all the magic I’ve done so far.”

“You’re taking your time about it?” Remus said. Sirius couldn’t read the look in his eye. It was nerve-wracking enough that Moony hadn’t complained once about the trek to get to the bike’s hiding place.

“Complex machine, complex spellwork,” said Sirius. “We learned that with the Map too, y’know? It’s like you said all the time, when we were making that.”

“There’s no one answer,” Remus murmured. “You remembered.”  
  


“You remember?” said Peter. “I found that hiding place a year ago, and you said—”

“Of course I remember,” said James, shoving him into a wall panel to the side of Dumbledore’s desk that opened up to a cramped but extremely useful hiding place. The Invisibility Cloak wasn’t enough at a time like this, and even the secrets of the Headmaster’s office weren’t off-limits to Marauders—you just had to be sure you used the right spells to make sure the portraits didn’t spy on you. “Forget what I said, that was some of your best work. Now shut up, I want to hear this.”

“And we don’t want to get caught.”

“Right, that too. Now _hush_ ,” James said, and not a moment too soon, because the targets were approaching.

“I can only presume that this is extremely urgent,” said Dumbledore, taking his seat. They could see from their angle that the tiny, tiny rabbit was still perched on his hat.

Peter stifled a weird noise.

McGonagall didn’t hear, but she still looked disapproving. James was always in awe of Dumbledore for not wilting under it. “Headmaster, this has gone on long enough. You’ve _got_ to do something about it.”  
  


“You’ve got to do something about it, you know, all the variables. Did you know this whole thing is run by _explosions_? Explosions to drive the pistons, that come from the fuel mixing with _air_. Just air! Muggles! Brilliant! Who knew! But you know how much magic likes explosions, and makes them—”

“Makes them so much worse,” Remus finished.

“Exactly, so you’re mixing controlled chaos with more chaos. A simple set of Levitation spells isn’t going to do the job, plus it’s a machine, you know? Much more complicated than a broomstick. Lot of moving parts, lot of things that have to work together correctly all the time. The more magic you add, the more it grows a—well, a _personality_. Even broomsticks grow one as they get older, and that’s just a stick with twigs!”

“The digital watch incident in third year,” Remus said.

“Christ, yes.” Sirius shuddered. “That thing could bite, I still have the scars on my nose. Anyway, you want that to some degree, of course, but you want to keep it contained, which no wizard ever bothers to do, so I thought, what if the bike _wants_ to fly? What if that’s part of the spell? Like giving the Map a little bit of our personality, you know? But in practice that means convincing all the little moving parts, and the big ones, you’ve got to give the wheels something to do, and—”

“Sirius,” Remus said. His face was still blank, a mystery to Sirius.

Sirius stopped talking immediately. “Er—yes?”

“Get off the bike,” said Remus.

“What?” he said, but he was already swinging a leg back over it, to stand and face Remus. “I thought you wanted to—”

Remus kissed him.  
  


“I thought you wanted to lighten the mood in the castle a bit,” said Dumbledore. “And this, you have to admit, is a very creative way of doing it.”

“By encouraging a spirit of togetherness and community,” said McGonagall. “Not overrunning the castle with rabbits!”

“I’m sorry,” said Dumbledore. “What rabbits?”

James almost gasped out loud, and had to step on Peter’s foot to keep him from doing so. He hissed sharply, but that was all right. McGonagall gaped at Dumbledore in astonishment, but in her shock she wasn’t listening to anything very closely.

“You’re joking,” she said finally.  
  


Remus pulled away after a moment, looked at him warily. “I—um.”

Sirius stared, caught his breath, stared some more. “Tell me you’re not joking,” he said finally. “Or—you’re just trying to get me to shut up about engines, aren’t you? Moony, you sly—”

“I’m not,” Remus interrupted, mercifully. He hesitated. “Are you? Joking?”

Sirius’s brain stuttered. Moony should _never_ look like that, like he was scared Sirius didn’t—didn’t want him. “No,” he said. He pulled Remus back in, to show him exactly how much he meant it.

Remus didn’t pull away this time.  
  


“No,” said Dumbledore. “I really don’t know what you mean. I thought we were talking about Flitwick’s frog choir initiative.”

McGonagall snorted. “You and I both know that’s nonsense,” she said. “Why he’s involved frogs, I’ll never understand. But—this is off topic, Headmaster! There’s one on your hat right now! You have to have noticed!”

“Oh, you mean Flopsy,” said Dumbledore cheerfully. “I did wonder how a rabbit got into the Great Hall. He’s no trouble, though. Enjoys lettuce. Are you saying there’s more than one?”

“I—you— _Dumbledore!_ ”

Dumbledore actually laughed. “Come, Minerva. Are these alleged rabbits doing any harm?”

“No, they’re just—well, they’re _everywhere_. It’s gotten out of hand!”

“Has anyone been hurt by them?”

“Not _yet_ ,” said McGonagall, darkly. “Give the Ravenclaws a few more day. I heard one of them starting a rumor that a rabbit bite will give you inspiration for all your essays. _Especially_ if it’s one of the ones with webbed feet.”

“Was that Xenophilius Lovegood?”

“Well, yes,” McGonagall admitted. “But you know how they are—get an idea in their heads and they’ll not stop until they figure out a way to make it work. One of them will hear it from him and scoff but two days later we’ll have an epidemic of rabbit bites on our hands, and just pray it isn’t from the fanged ones.”

“I’m sure they’ll all be too preoccupied with the frog choir,” said Dumbledore, with a straight face. “But really, Minerva. These are all unfounded rumors, and I’m sure nothing will come of them. I was quite enjoying dinner—do you think the House Elves will have saved some treacle tart?”

McGonagall sighed. “If we find you some, will you at least _consider_ ridding the castle of this—well, this scourge?”

“The adorable, twitchy-nosed scourge?” said Dumbledore. “Well, if you insist.” They swept out of the room together, and just in time, because Peter was quivering with suppressed laughter, and James was on the verge of hysterics himself.  
  


“You know you promised me a ride,” said Remus, when they stopped, briefly, to breathe again.

Sirius blinked. “Well, if you insist, I suppose—but _you_ started it. Dragged me back to your cave and everything.”

“This is _your_ cave,” Remus said. He was grinning. “You stashed a motorbike here and dragged _me_ out to _kidnap_ me, and then ramble at me until I had to shut you up.”

“Wouldn’t know about these caves without you,” Sirius retorted. “Like you didn’t come willingly. C’mon, though. It was a good idea, I like it even better.”

Remus’s smile made his eyes crinkle at the corners. Sirius was so, so fucked. “Better than chasing? And running?”

“Well, by a slim margin,” Sirius said, but he grinned too. “You’ve been losing your mind over those damn rabbits too, huh?”

“I’m resisting the urge to snarl and drool at the mouth,” said Remus. “But, yes.”

“Y’know I’ve never seen you do that? You’d rather just run. And throw yourself at the furniture.”

“The furniture had it coming,” said Remus. Oh, _god_. He was joking about the werewolf thing again. Sirius almost grabbed him by the collar to snog him breathless again—but no, Remus still had more to say. “So, are you going to do it or not?”

“Um—do what now?” What were they talking about?

His smile this time was slow, almost feral, and the backflips from before were _nothing_. “Take me for a ride, Padfoot.”

“Um—”

“On the bike,” Remus said.

Sirius gulped.

He managed to get them both onto the bike and out to the highway, but Remus pressing into his back was _so much worse_ this time.  
  


James managed to get Peter _out_ of the Headmaster’s office, _down_ the stairs, _down_ the corridor, _up_ the stairs, for _fuck’s_ sake this castle was enormous, and _into_ the Gryffindor Common Room, before collapsing into a heap of laughter on the floor.

Several rabbits hopped onto, and off of, their heads, while they did this.

It only made them laugh harder.  
  


Remus was laughing into his ear. He could hear it through their helmets, just under the noise of the engine.

Sirius grinned, and revved the engine.

He was laughing too.

It was the kind of night on which you took random turns, roared down any street that looked promising, and laughed at the stars and the streetlights. Remus didn’t even try to make him stop—just hung on tight, and Sirius swore he could _feel_ him smiling.

Dammit, James was right about this being a good idea. They’d both been cooped up with too many stifled emotions, for too long. They both needed a good chase to get it out of their systems, and not a full moon one that Moony would hate himself for afterwards.

He wasn’t sure how long it was or even where they were when Remus pinched him, but he pulled over right away.

“There’s got to be a better way to get my attention on this thing,” he said, taking off his helmet. Remus did the same, and for a minute Sirius forgot about everything except the glint in Remus’s eye and the way he stepped into Sirius’s personal space much farther than usual.

“We should go up there,” Remus said.

“Where,” said Sirius, but it wasn’t a question and he was maybe staring at Remus’s lips.

Remus smiled and shook his head, ever so slightly. “Up there,” he said, pointing. “I don’t know what it is, but it looks abandoned.”

Sirius turned, and had to squint a bit before he saw what Remus meant. But the waning moon gave just enough light to see—yes, up a steep hill on the edge of whatever sleepy town they’d found, there was a crumbling church, or something, and it had a tower.

“But Moony,” said Sirius, not turning to face him, because he didn’t need to. “There are probably _rules_ against just going in there. It’s probably _dangerous_.”

Remus _laughed_. It wasn’t a short laugh, or a sheepish one. It was one he actually meant. Sirius turned around in an instant, to catch his expression, and grin back, and pull Remus in by his belt loops and taste that laughter for himself.

After a minute or two, and one car that whizzed past and startled them both, they pulled away, still grinning at each other.

“Come on,” said Remus. “It looks cold, deserted, and structurally unsound. It’s perfect.”

Well, there was no arguing with that.

The climb to the top was a little treacherous, but less so when you were seventeen, invulnerable, and had someone else to clutch at and laugh breathlessly any time a stone moved under your feet. They made it to the top, and—yes. Yes, the stars were all out. Sirius laughed, a loud whooping sound, not caring how far it carried or who was listening, and threw his hands up to the sky.

Remus was laughing too. In the pale light, Sirius could see little crinkles of happiness around his eyes.

There were a few breathless, albeit more quiet, moments after that.

It was a little while after that, when they’d succumbed to their original intention of laying flat on their backs to look at the stars, that Sirius found it in him to break the silence and say, softly, “So what’s it like?”

Remus turned his head. “Er—you’re still asking? Once wasn’t enough?”

“Not that,” said Sirius. “I mean—bottling everything up all the time. Never saying exactly what you’re thinking. Hiding.”

Remus went very, very still.

Because he could, now, Sirius took his hand. He didn’t know why it felt like the right move, but Remus squeezed his fingers, once, in response, so it couldn’t have been a bad move.

“No one is supposed to be able to tell,” Remus said, finally, after a very long moment.

“It’s me,” said Sirius. “I can tell.”

Remus was silent again. Sirius waited, pretending he was looking at the stars, while actually watching Remus out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to be ready.

“Exhausting,” Remus said, when he spoke again. “I’m used to it—I have to—to protect everyone—but.”

He stopped, and didn’t speak again.

Sirius thought about this for a minute, then released Remus’s hand but rolled over on his side to face him. “Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?”

“Protect me. From you.”

“Sirius—”

“I don’t need it. I like you when you’re snarling and chasing innocent bunnies. I like you when you lose your temper because they pushed you too far. And you like me even though I—” he stopped. Swallowed. “—you know.”

“Took a while to like you again,” Remus said, with a faint smile to show he was softening the blow but did, in fact, mean it.

“Not the point,” said Sirius. “You trust me again. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Remus. He didn’t hesitate.

“You can’t drive me away. You can’t. I like you at your absolute worst, I can take it. I’m trying you know, not to—do the wrong thing—”

“I know.”

“But—be mad at me. Snarl. I deserved it, you know I did. Moony, I mean it. Don’t let me drive you away.”

Remus stared at him for a minute, then nodded. Slowly. “It’s a lot to unlearn.”

Sirius reached for him, pulled him closer. Remus let himself be pulled. “You’re getting better at it,” he said—breathed, rather, they were so close. “I love it. I love it so much.”

A smile worked its way across Remus’s face, and Sirius answered it with one of his own.

“I know,” said Remus.

And then Remus reached back, and they met each other halfway, and drew even closer, and there was no more talking for a long, long while.  
  


It was probably 3 in the morning, well past a decent hour for _anything_ that didn’t involve pelting the Slytherin dungeon with dungbombs, but James still got tingly and lightheaded with glee when he heard his two idiot friends sneaking into the dormitory as though James “Prongs, Prongsie, Prongs My Man” Potter wasn’t wide awake waiting for them to materialize.

There was only one possible course of action. As soon as they closed the door and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, he threw on all the lights at once (magic was so useful, honestly) and boomed “WHAT’S ALL THIS, THEN?” at the top of his lungs.

Peter actually fell out of bed.

What he did _not_ expect was for Sirius to immediately slap him in the face, and Remus to not even hesitate before hitting him with a Jelly-Legs Jinx.

He reversed it immediately, but by the time he did, Sirius was doubled over with laughter, and Remus was fighting back a grin.

Peter looked deeply confused. And tired.

“Go back to sleep, Pete,” said James. He was feeling generous—and not sure if Sirius and Remus were quite ready for this conversation if Peter was in it too.

It was a sign of how exhausted Peter must really be that he crawled back into bed without arguing, and let James cast Silencing Charms that would ensure he was left out of this. He normally didn’t want to miss anything—but there, he’d had a big day. Sneaking around the castle at all hours was good for him.

He turned back to Sirius and Remus. Sirius’s arm was slung over Remus’s shoulder.

James desperately wanted to be cool, but couldn’t muster up the energy. Instead, he grinned widely at them both, and even more widely when Remus squinted at him suspiciously.

“It worked, then,” he said finally. “Got it out of your system?”

“Which part?” said Sirius. “The driving or the—”

“THE DRIVING,” said James, suddenly realizing the downside of this state of affairs. And then how much he’d miscalculated when a slow grin spread across Sirius’s face.

“Yes, the driving,” said Sirius. He collapsed dramatically on his bed, still grinning. Remus sat next to him, but he was already covering his face with his hand. This was not going to end well. “We took your advice, of course. Went for a ride. It started out a bit awkward, with a lot of nonsense and trying to get the positioning right, but after a while we got the hang of doing it together and—”

“I hate you so much,” said James. “Remus, you probably still have some sense left, did he chase a rabbit? Can we finally get rid of them?”

Sirius didn’t even look annoyed that the whole scheme had been for that one purpose. Remus really must have done a number on him.

Number what, James _did not want to think_. So he _didn’t_.

“No rabbit chasing,” said Remus. A smirk danced faintly acrossed his face. “We found better things to do.”

“I regret everything,” said James.

Sirius barked a laugh.

Remus laughed too, and leaned into him a bit.

So, really, James was a genius and should take up relationship counseling full time.

He did _not_ say that out loud. He had a feeling some names would be flung around, names like “Lily” and “Evans,” as though any of that was relevant, as though trying to date a redhead with a mean right hook wasn’t _way more difficult_ than just, you know, a werewolf who nearly murdered someone because you…

On second thought, maybe Sirius did take a more ridiculously difficult road. Strange.

On third thought, James decided they should let Dumbledore keep Flopsy for a bit. It seemed cruel to separate them.

Speaking of which.

“Separate beds, you two,” he said sternly to his two best friends in the world. The two that were awake, anyway. And still leaning on each other. Smiling. “I don’t want to hear any weird noises in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, you won’t,” said Sirius.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Remus.

“Oh, god, my eyes,” said James.

Which really summed the whole affair up rather well.

All they had to do now was get rid of the rabbits. But, as James decided just before he drifted off to sleep—

They could deal with that on Monday.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit heavier than most of what I write, but. I don't read enough of these in which Remus is angry, and shows it (even unintentionally). Or in which James lashes out--because, when you think about it, how much did he mature that day? It would've turned _my_ hair gray, anyway. I also don't know if I believe that they communicated this well (if at all) in canon, but it's interesting to play with what-ifs.
> 
> Also: the thing Remus didn't say when Sirius told him he's not a monster, was "“Then why did you try to use me like one?"
> 
> That one unsaid sentence will probably come back to haunt them.


End file.
